re: Question on teacher pay raise

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Also she said the money for the raise is coming from the Teacher’s Retirement System.

If that is true it doesn’t sound like it is a prudent plan.

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They want to raid the fund and are dangling this raise as a carrot to get them to bite.

They've been trying to get their hands on the Retirement Fund for years.

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Both of these are absolutely wrong.

The Teacher's Retirement system is about $7 billion in debt (liabilities in excess of funding). The two billion from the liquidated funds would be ADDED to the retirement system. The retirement system is NOT being raided. It actually adds to the sustainability of the retirement system.

Since retirement debt will be lower, the school systems will owe less to the retirement system. Similar to how when you pay down your credit card debt, your monthly note is less.

Those savings will pay for the raises.

Now I am not trying to change your mind on how you vote. There are a lot of considerations.

But at least get the facts right.

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Has more to do with student selection bias than anything else. Public schools have to take every child; private can select from a pool of applicants and usually those applicant families have the additional economic means to pay the tuition.

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Precisely.

Imagine two football coaches:

Coach Private can recruit and hold tryouts. All of his players have parents who are willing and able to pay thousands of dollars to be coached by him, because they think football is very important. If a player has a consistently bad attitude or even just performs poorly, Coach Private can cut him.

Coach Public isn't allowed to recruit. He is required to give everyone who shows up playing time, even if that player is severely physically disabled. Some of his players have parents who care about football, but not all of them. If a player says that he hates football and wants to quit, it's Coach Public's job to convince him otherwise. He technically can cut a player, but doing so requires a mountain of paperwork.

How can we tell who is the better coach?

(I say all this as a person who attended private school K-12.)

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I believe teachers should be highly paid, but also highly trained. During the school year, teachers spend more time with our children than parents do. Their influence upon our children is vastly overlooked.

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I agree. And one thing they must be trained and tested on is the constitution and civics no matter what they teach

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Have you looked into licensing requirements? I went back to finish my degree (adult ed) after quitting a job that paid me $30/hr. Louisiana would not permit me to teach K-12 until after undergoing a year of unpaid classroom time. A friend's dad was a chemical engineer for Dow for 25 years, he was not permitted by Texas to teach high school chemistry. He was hired, though, to teach it at a community college with the exact same qualifications.

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Yup and it’s absolutely insane. Almost like they make it harder for intelligent people with actual experience to replace the dolt who has zero experience outside of a classroom. Thank the unions for that

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Oh I absolutely know what Im talking about. They are extremely childish and think the world revolves around the school because they know no different as they have never had to survive outside of a school setting.

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You seem to paint with a wide brush. More like your assumptions.

Care to share what you do for a living so we can make our assumptions on your profession?

That brush paints in both directions.

No I’m not a teacher.

For the most part, teachers (especially in public schools) are not allowed to practice discipline with students (and the students know this and this idea is reinforced and encouraged by shitty parenting who don’t think their little darlings NEVER do anything wrong).Teachers I have spoken to are mostly terrified to exercise ANY kind of discipline in the classroom because of the ramifications up to and including being physically assaulted by students and often, even parents. Based upon what I have been told by teachers I know, I wouldn’t be a teacher at ANY pay rate.

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These numbers are much different if you remove the millions of foreigners from the classroom

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What would they be?

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The Teacher's Retirement system is about $7 billion in debt (liabilities in excess of funding). The two billion from the liquidated funds would be ADDED to the retirement system. The retirement system is NOT being raided. It actually adds to the sustainability of the retirement system.

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I didn't saybthey were raiding the retirement fund.

What is said was they want to go after the funds mentioned and liquidate them with nothing to replace them. Those funds despite being small are locked up and there every year unless they are cashed out like they want for usage to throw money at a giant mismanaged pit.

They ALSO for years have been trying to go after the TRSL to borrow out of that fund for state usage and it would never get paid back.

Not once in my post was it stated they would be reducing the TRSL.

Removing a source of guaranteed funds for the education system with nothing to replace it is is shite. If these can be raided you can bet your arse next time they come after more.

That is the caveat,,,,,,,and the unions are strong

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Can you explain what you mean by this, and how said technology meets the standards of education in this state, and specifically how this technology replaces the teacher.

I'll wait.

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Can't even explain why your wife wants to vote against it.